CEO Chris Ruddy ~ The NEWSMAX 20-Year Story ~ With Gene Valentino

Narrator: With breaking news and political commentary from a public servant, serial entrepreneur, community leader, philanthropist, and American patriot, and a darn nice guy, it’s time for the Grassroots TruthCast, and your host, Gene Valentino.

Gene Valentino: Hi friends, Gene Valentino, and welcome to another episode of Gene Valentino’s Grassroots TruthCast. We’ve covered the Gambit on so many different social and political issues, but today it’s a chance to look at the media with a more careful eye. And I think you’ll appreciate today’s event.

I’m with Chris Ruddy. Chris is the CEO and founder of a not so small network of news broadcast called Newsmax. Thank you, Mr. Ruddy for being with us today. Well, Gene,

Christopher Ruddy: please call me Chris. Um, and you are a, um, you’ve got that Midas touch in business. So I feel like just being around you, I’ll [00:01:00] get some of the glow.

And I see you like in your, you have a great setup for your, for your podcast. I love the Trump hat. And what does it say? Trump 2028.

Gene Valentino: Oh, well,

Christopher Ruddy: if

Gene Valentino: we can get an amendment through on that, I would like that very much. Well, one never

Christopher Ruddy: knows when that’s right, but, but we, um, but I appreciate you having me on and I’m really honored and flattered that you’re talking with me.

Gene Valentino: And likewise, sir. Chris, you know, um, I came out of broadcast journalism a long time ago and then morphed into business and business entrepreneurship my whole life. And I made a promise to my dad that before I got too old and gray, I’d circled back. So now in the later years of my life, I find myself in enjoying what’s come up since the early days of broadcast journalism is a whole new Anomaly, a phenomenon of broadcast journalism.

The whole concept originally of cable TV morphing into this streaming concept now and [00:02:00] look who’s in the center of all of it is you and Newsmax and how you’ve morphed to consider all those technologies in this brave new world. You want to talk about briefly the past of Newsmax, where it’s at now and where it’s going?

Christopher Ruddy: Well, Newsmax is, I like to say, an overnight success story for the past 25 years. We’ve been around for a while, although people probably only recently, many people nationally, have only recently heard of us. We, um, we started in, I started in 1998 in Florida of all places, West Palm Beach, um, Newsmax. com and Newsmax Media.

We grew to be one of the largest digital media companies in the U. S. for political news. In about 2014, I launched Newsmax TV, the channel, the news channel. It’s now the fourth highest rated cable news channel just behind CNN. We reach over 20 million Americans [00:03:00] regularly. Altogether, all our platforms, we’re reaching about 40 million Americans.

We have a huge reach on social media, on X, Facebook, Truth Social, you name it, we’re there. We’re also big on, on streaming television, we’re on free, so it’s just so many different venues you can get Newsmax and it’s been a very good journey.

Gene Valentino: It’s so interesting to me to see how it’s, how it’s morphed as you’ve described.

You know, in the early days there was, um, There was just, and it was the dilemma of media back then as well, where you would have few owners owning big outlets. Uh, more recently Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post and so forth, where you’d have very few owners owning big outlet systems. What I found most interesting about your initial public offering, which is, um, which has just been, [00:04:00] uh, which you’ve announced and the pre sale for it, uh, is that You’re doing what the Green Bay Packers did.

A sports organization owned a little bit of investors, the fans, each having a piece of the rock. I see you doing the same thing here with Newsmax. Yes or no?

Christopher Ruddy: Well, we announced last week or just over a week ago that we’re going to go public. It sent shockwaves through a lot of media outlets. The Newsmax was going to become a public company.

You know, I’ve been a private company, the majority owner here of Newsmax for over 20 years, and we’ve been pretty comfortable doing that. We’re profitable now. We have a lot of success. People say, why do you want to become public? And the answer is, uh, several factors, but one is we just feel like, hey, now’s the time to bring in partners of the American people.

You can buy shares in Newsmax, and we could have hundreds of thousands, potentially, of these [00:05:00] shareholders that are partners that are working to build Newsmax. And yet you, having built businesses, Gene, know how important it is to have consumer and public support for what you do. So I love this idea of the partnering.

And the second thing I saw how great President Trump’s Truth Social and his app and his media company went public. It’s worth billions of dollars. It went as high as 10 billion. We’re not saying we’re going to go as high as that, but I think there’s tremendous interest. Newsmax is, um, friendly to President Trump.

He, he says it’s his favorite network. He comes on, uh, he’s going to be on tonight. We’re going to cover his debate. We’re going to cover his rally on Friday. So, um, we think there’s huge interest. So far there has been huge interest. Um, people actually can go online and buy shares now in Newsmax, which is amazing if they’re eligible and the eligibility rules are made not by me, but by the SEC for accredited investors.

But you can buy the pre IPO shares by going to [00:06:00] NewsmaxInvest. com. That’s one word, NewsmaxInvest. com, and we’ve had tens of thousands of people sign up, uh, for the, for information and to say they’re interested in investing. It’s been a real, real, real, uh, honor to, to get that type of response.

Gene Valentino: Okay. And now I put on my investor hat as an entrepreneur and I say, here, you’re coming in with over 200 million of potential investor dollars.

What do you do with that money and where do you go?

Christopher Ruddy: I’m I think I start the Gene Valentino show on Newsmax, make him into the next Bill O’Reilly, Tucker Carlson, and, uh, and, uh You might be stuck with me. Then I make a few billion on that 200 million. As long as Well, geometric growth is a, yeah, geometric growth is

Gene Valentino: a good thing.

I

Christopher Ruddy: don’t think I can afford your rates, though, Gene. I don’t think I can afford those rates. Well, there’s an old We have a lot [00:07:00] of areas of growth. The cable TV channel is still exploding. We have a streaming channel where that’s still growing. We have a Newsmax Plus service. You know, we want to have a lot more on that streaming service.

People can subscribe. They just go to NewsmaxPlus. com and we get. You know, we’ve have a quarter of a million people so far that have signed up for that. So it’s just like so many different things. We love the area of podcasting and audio broadcasting. That’s a potential area of radio. So there’s a lot of things Newsmax is doing.

You know, the Reuters study came out just, uh, last week. They did this global study, Gene, and they asked, you know, who, what are the media sources you watch? Each country, 47 countries. The U. S. The top 12 news brands, according to Reuters, includes Newsmax. And according to them, we’re reaching about 25 million people.

That’s just through the TV channel, not the digital side of the company. And I think it’s amazing. We were in with all these other top brands like ABC and [00:08:00] CBS and CNN and Fox, and I’m relatively new. I don’t have any legacy media supporting. That’s just, You and the American people and the people listening to this podcast and the viewers are going to Newsmax on their apps, on their phones, on their website, on their televisions and cable TV.

And they’re tuning in fairly regularly and I, I think it’s showing now with the confidence we’re seeing.

Gene Valentino: You exemplify, and I predict, that the future of broadcast journalism. is not what we’ve known it before, but what it will be today is a diversity of paths, pathways, uh, social media, streaming, uh, the old days of television merging into cable TV.

We can’t abandon cable TV per se, but it is a pathway to parallel with all the other pathways you’re working on. There’s only one network I’ve found, one operation I’ve found that’s on the top of this, and that’s Newsmax under your [00:09:00] leadership, and I commend you for that, sir. I, I think that is the future.

If you’re talking about where, uh, I can’t tell the folks where Newsmax is going to be investing 200 million dollars in the future, but I would guess, if I was an investor, that I would want to see it going into parallel pathways so that you’re not held hostage to anyone. Yes or no? Well, I

Christopher Ruddy: agree with everything you said.

I think you’d be a great advisor for Newsmax. Again, I’m not sure I can afford your rates, but we may have to bring you on as a work and charity case. I don’t know. Well, it’s a little hard to claim charity when you got 200 million in the bank, which we don’t have yet, but we hopefully will. But look, you know, I think that, um, you’re right.

I mean, I think it’s just being everywhere. Just like you said, you said pathways. I think that the public consumes news and information at different ways. Some people like text. I, I’ve met people that go, I read Newsmax on my [00:10:00] social media and they get our news blurbs there. You know, so people are going to podcasts like yours.

We have a couple of great podcasters. Um, they’re getting, um, through, through the website Newsmax and the TV channel. So I agree. We’re one of the first, I don’t know if we’re the first, but certainly to do all these pathways and be fairly successful in almost all of them. And I think it’s a sign that we’re onto something.

The old ways and the old media, which they’re, they’re totally, They’re hostage to their traditions and to their liberalism and left wingism. We’re not, you know, people say Newsmax is this or that. We’re fair. We always like to have balance on our network. We like to have both sides.

Gene Valentino: Well, how do you, how do you, you, you stand apart from the CNNs and the CBS, ABC, uh, left, uh, fake news side of things.

I, uh, but at the same time, I’ve noticed Newsmax. They, they call [00:11:00] balls and strikes. I’ve seen you, senior team, uh, uh, present, uh, questions in a manner that, uh, take on both sides of the issues fairly, as you should, uh, if you’re truly looking for facts and objectivity. Now we’ve formed opinions and we have room on the Newsmax, uh, in, in Newsmax environment for those different opinions to reveal themselves, but is it not true that, uh, that you stand apart from the other?

Outlets by just making sure the facts aren’t indisputable. Isn’t that true? Well, I’ll give you some,

Christopher Ruddy: some hard truth about that, Gene. Um, it’s easy. We could say we’re better. We’re fairer, but let me tell you this on Newsmax, we have a lot of Donald Trump. Our, our, our audience loves Donald Trump. We have critics of Donald Trump in our audience too.

We welcome everybody to watch Newsmax. I have on Republicans that love Donald Trump. I have on Republicans that don’t like Donald Trump. [00:12:00] John Bolton, who I think is great in foreign affairs, he’s a Trump critic. He comes on Newsmax. We have critics that are Democrats that don’t like Donald Trump. They come on Newsmax all the time.

And, and you know what? Donald Newsmax because we give him a fair shake where Fox is not putting him on. Or they’re censoring him, or they’re blacklisting him, which they’ve done in the past. We’re not doing any of that. But go to CNN and MSNBC. How many pro Trump people do they ever have on CNN and MSNBC?

It’s close to zero, my friend. It’s close to zero. I mean, CNN’s probably a little tad better than MSNBC. But I don’t know, I think if you go over to MSNBC and you say you’re a Trump supporter, you’re going to need a bodyguard to get out of there alive. Yeah. Um, and, and so I, I, you know, um, I, I just think I get what they’re doing over there.

They’re polarizing, they’re this and that. We’ve taken a different [00:13:00] path and it’s working and it’s growing. I think the American people are saying, you know what? I like Newsmax. It’s not bad. It’s actually pretty good.

Gene Valentino: So. Newsmax just announced a few minutes ago, uh, um, uh, that our, our, our good friend, Hunter Biden has lost his, uh, with the Bar Association in Washington, D.

C. has lost his, uh, uh, license to practice law there. Uh, in parallel to that, we’re only two days away From a debate that, uh, handcuffs Donald Trump in many ways for the first time in history, unprecedented, we see rules in place being imposed on two candidates, one, uh, uh, being seriously restricted in the debate process.

And the other one calling, uh, marching orders from the White House, uh, to try to incarcerate him. Which failed prior to Thursday night’s elect election. What I like about Newsmax is that the folks have a say and that they can come forward [00:14:00] and invest their dollars. Unlike the fake news medias, which is a, a cabal, a selection of few people owning big networks in the news back’s investment strategy.

I see many, many, many people being able to step up five, ten, twenty thousand dollars, whatever you can afford at investnewsmax. com. Chris,

Christopher Ruddy: any

Gene Valentino: comments? I

Christopher Ruddy: appreciate that. That endorsement is fantastic. And you know, if people go on to that web page, it’s newsmaxinvest. com. There’s a private placement memorandum.

They should read that. They should be familiar. Watch the presentation video. Look at the presentation as a view of a PowerPoint, but they, they can hit the invest now button and actually go with a credit card and buy a share or more shares in Newsmax that they want. And it’s pretty simple process now.

And it’s tremendous that people can do it if they’re accredited investors. [00:15:00] And, um, we’ve had a, an incredible response that so much so that we’re hopeful we’re going to, we’re going to close this investment round and then not too distant future. And then hopefully go public people buy the shares. Now we’ll be able to trade after we go public.

So they’ll have the trading shares. And I think it’s an exciting time for the company. It’s an exciting time for America. And, you know, I think if Donald Trump wins the presidency. I think America will be on a much better footing going forward, too.

Gene Valentino: Bravo, Chris Ruddy. You’ve taken Newsmax from, uh, rags to riches, as the expression goes.

Any parting thoughts or comments you’d like to make?

Christopher Ruddy: Well, you know, I’ll, I’ll mention that I spoke to the president this morning, President Trump and I had a phone conversation and he said, he asked me what we’re, we’re talking about a number of things and he asked me, and I usually don’t reveal like what I say in private conversations, but I think this is not [00:16:00] something I would say in private either.

Yeah. I mean that it would be just confidential. I would say it publicly, which is, I think what President Trump should do in this debate is just talk about his record. And let people decide the output of Donald J. Trump as president on foreign policy, domestic policy, and compare that to the output that we’ve seen almost four years of Joe Biden’s presidency, domestic farm.

Joe Biden is the chaos president. We’ve seen chaos at the border, chaos at 25 percent inflation. It’s ruined. If you know what that’s done, if you have a, if you have a million dollars worth of assets, they’re, they’re worth 750, 000 now because of inflation. They’re not, that’s right. That even it might say a million, it’s worth less.

And so the value has gone down across the board, the chaos in our cities that you can’t go into a retail drug store without glass bars and [00:17:00] glass

Gene Valentino: That’s right. Containers

Christopher Ruddy: on everything. It’s insane what’s going on. And I think that Trump brings back a normalcy. So I’m hoping that’s what the discussion’s about.

We don’t hear about, you know, Hunter Biden’s an interesting character. I think it’s, I think that maybe the politics on him are overdone. He seems like a sorry figure. I feel, I actually feel sorry for the guy. Um, and you know, he’s, he’s, he’s got addictive behaviors and things like that. But, um, yeah. I, I just think that let’s talk about the issues that are really affecting America.

Gene Valentino: I consider this the distractions, the deflections, the diversions of our attention off the side issues. The masterful journalist keeps his focus on the true wrongs of this nation and, um, the Democrats have done a great job at trying to deflect our attention on that point. Oh, by the way, when President Trump was chatting with you, did he, um, suggest you’d be a good candidate for vice president?

That who would be

Christopher Ruddy: that you would be? [00:18:00] Oh, it’s interesting. You know, I, you know what I always tell him when I, when it’s been suggested that I go work for him, I say what I just said to you, I said, Donald, Donald can’t afford my rates. You know, I’ve known the president for 25 years, for those of you that don’t know.

So I’ve known him for a long time. We’re friends and we. Don’t agree on everything. I don’t agree with everything he, he posits and everything else, but I think he’s a good person. He loves America. And I think he’s really trying to make a difference. And, and I generally agree with, you know, the things he, he wants to do.

Um, there’d be some smaller things that I think. Could be in different approaches on things, but I think that he’s done it. He did an amazing job as president. I think he was the most impactful one term president in our history. I’ve never met a political figure. I don’t think there’s anyone in history that has had the draw and charisma he has had.

Yeah. And, um, I’m not sure I would ever accept the vice presidency, not that it’s beneath me, [00:19:00] not that it’s beneath me, but because I believe, Gene, there are much better qualified people to be vice president. I’m looking at the name right behind you on the screen there of Rick Scott. Yes. This guy is a, he was the best governor in recent memory.

I think, I think very highly of Jeb Bush too. Jeb was a fantastic governor. I know some conservatives don’t like him. I love Jeb Bush. I love Rick Scott. Rick, uh, was a private business guy and then he became a senator. He works really hard as a Senate job. Not true of many of his colleagues. Uh, I don’t mean to name names.

And so, like, people like that, they, they really are good, and, you know, I’m good at the media thing, and I think that’s where I’m going to stick. I’m sorry? No, I’m going to, I think I should stick to what, what, um, what, what I’m doing, otherwise I might lose my day job.

Gene Valentino: Well, I feel the same way at times. You know, your, your, uh, [00:20:00] relationship with Donald Trump is not unlike mine with, uh, Rick Scott, uh, former governor, Rick Scott, now Senator Rick Scott.

Boy, you hit the nail on the head. I, uh, I, I wished he would be a, um, On the top six list of President Trump’s consideration for vice president, I do hope he gets the nod and takes over the speaker title, the head of the Senate after Mitch McConnell retires. The biggest success stories we’ve had are with people who come out of strong business environments that then morph into trying to do good.

As opposed to the reverse. Another example of that is Doug Burgum, uh, Governor over in North Dakota. He’s, he’s on the shortlist for President Trump. He definitely is.

Christopher Ruddy: I can tell you that. He’s on the shortlist and he’s a very strong character and guy. I like him a lot.

Gene Valentino: Yeah. Well, sir, I, we’ve, we’ve, uh, uh, you’ve been gracious to give me your precious [00:21:00] time.

I’m so honored to have you here to talk about, uh, invest news, invest Newsmax. com folks go to Newsmax.

Christopher Ruddy: Actually we have the domain invest Newsmax, I think works also, but it’s Newsmaxinvest. com. Okay. We want to make sure they, they don’t end up working, going to some commie pinko site by accident.

Gene Valentino: Newsmaxinvest. com. My guest today, folks, has been Chris Ruddy, CEO, founder of Newsmax, an organization, and as, as I characterized, not unlike the Green Bay Packers that allows folks, the common folks, to invest in an initiative. Well, this initiative and this style of investment, putting on my investment hat again for a second, is so interesting to me because it allows you and me to have a piece of the action.

Do you have a piece of the action at Newsmax, [00:22:00] excuse me, at CNN, at MSNBC, at ABC and the like? I doubt it. But here’s your chance to take a shot at a piece of the rock at Newsmax. And I’d encourage you to go to their website. We’ll post it as well. Chris Ruddy, thank you for joining us today. It’s been an honor and a privilege to have you on Gene Valentino’s Grassroots TruthCast.

See y’all again soon. On to

Victory. On to victory.

Christopher Ruddy: For sure. And watch the debate. We’ll be covering the debate live with the president this Thursday. Thank you, Mr. Ruddy. Thank you, Gene.

Narrator: Thanks for joining us for Gene Valentino’s Grassroots TruthCast. Be sure to like and subscribe, and God bless America.